


if you close your eyes

by HappyCamper27



Series: The Plot Bunny Kennel [3]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Angst, Basically this is angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Groundhog Day, Implied/Referenced Suicide, May Or May Not Be Continued, Plotbunny, So much angst, Suicide, Time Loop, but maybe a happy ending, not sure yet - Freeform, seriously people this gets dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 18:17:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11041641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyCamper27/pseuds/HappyCamper27
Summary: Does it almost feel like you've been here before?Or:Corrin relives the events of all three games. Over. And over. Andover.





	if you close your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my gander at timeloop!Corrin, based off of my post on tumblr [here](http://ridasverkisto.tumblr.com/post/160989452552/more-fef-fanfic-thoughts).  
> Title comes from _Pompeii_ by Bastille.
> 
> ...as said in tags, this may or may not be continued. Anyone's welcome to pick it up, however, so long as they let me know (though a credit for inspiration would be appreciate lol)  
>  And also, as this is a groundhog day fic, and is tagged Angst? Please be aware that canonical chara death occurs. And Corrin--doesn't deal well.  
> In other words, if you don't deal well with darkness and suicide and stuff? Please don't read. I don't want anyone hurt, okay?

“Time to wake up, Lady Corrin!”

It’s Flora, again, she thinks vaguely.

“Hey, wake up, Lady Corrin! Up and at ‘em!”

And there’s Felicia, again, too. Just like the script.

Still.

Corrin sits up, groans, repeats the same words as always. Going through the motions.

“Hrmm…what are you talking about?” she asks, stretching her stiff shoulders. “It’s still dark outside.”

“Listen well, Princess”—and there’s Gunter, with old dry words that barely mean anything anymore—“It may be dark, but it is indeed morning. You have practice today.”

Oh, does she? Who’d have thought.

“I have taken the liberty of readying your armor, and, er, pounding out the dents.” Jakob. Loyal, devoted Jakob. “Your brother is a fearsome opponent, is he not?”

_Xander_. _Oh, Jakob. If only you knew._

But he won’t. Corrin smiles and nods along with the rest of the script, letting Flora and Felicia shock her with ice, until the four of her servants leave the room to let her collect herself shortly for her lesson with Xander.

It’s only once she’s alone that she lets her shoulders slump, lets the cold, dull apathy that’s long since shriveled her heart show itself on her face.

She flops back on the bed, stares up at the vaulted ceiling for a moment. Reaches a gauntleted hand up, gaze tracing out dents and scars no longer present.

“Again, huh?” she murmurs eventually. “Well then.”

She stands up, grabs her blade from where it rests against the wall. Straps it on, and _yearns_ for the long-familiar weight of her dragonstone at her hip and the Yato along her back.

But she’s lagging, and lagging behind the script rarely brings anything good to her—she shakes away the flicker of memory that whispers in her mind of _bloodbloodbloodsomuchblood_ and _rageunutterablerage_.

She opens the door, and hurries to the roof where Xander and Leo await, puppets on the huge stage that has become her world.

Unaware actors in a never-ending mockery of life.

_At least,_ she thinks to herself as she readies her blade— _too small, too light, too_ dull _—_ once again, _I didn’t die this time._

 

Ends where she dies before being reset always suck.

 

///

It starts like this:

Corrin wakes from a ~~prophetic~~ dream, defeats Xander in their lesson. She is summoned by Garon, her father, to Castle Krakenburg, where she is ordered to execute Hoshidan prisoners of war with a blade gifted to her, _Ganglari._

She refuses.

In punishment, she is sent with Gunter, Jakob, and Hans to take a fort on the Nohr-Hoshidan border.

_~~It’s a suicide mission, and they all know it.~~ _

They’re rescued from the Hoshidan reinforcements by Xander, Camilla, Leo, and Elise; ordered to retreat, she goes with Gunter and Jakob—only for Jakob to vanish, Gunter to be thrown into the canyon by Hans, and for Corrin to kill Hans herself.

_~~Later, older stronger wiser, she wonders why she didn’t realize her heritage sooner. Seen the nails stronger than steel, the fangs sharp as knives in her mouth.~~ _

_~~Even later, olderstrongerwisercolder, she stops wondering. It means nothing.~~ _

Then, she is taken by the Hoshidans.

Escorted to the capital, she meets Queen Mikoto—and learns both of her parentage ~~but only half~~ , and of her Hoshidan siblings.

_~~Oh, Ryoma, Hinoka, Takumi, Sakura. I’m sorry.~~ _

Then, they are attacked.

Mikoto dies.

And Corrin— _snaps_.

In the aftermath, the news comes—Nohr is attacking, and the royal siblings are called to battle. Corrin—Kamui, as they insist on calling her—is brought along.

On the plains of Hoshido, both sides of her family face off. Xander, Ryoma; Camilla, Hinoka; Leo, Takumi; Elise, Sakura.

They demand she choose:

Hoshido, or Nohr.

 

It starts, in truth, like this:

She must make a choice.

She chooses.

 

///

The first time, she chooses the family she has known most of her life.

Xander, Camilla, Leo, Elise.

She chooses Nohr.

She fights the war, struggles with her suspicions of her father. Becomes the Traitor Princess of Hoshido.

She stays Corrin instead of Kamui.

But.

Innocent blood runs rivers red.

Takumi dies.

Ryoma kills himself, to spare her the pain.

Azura vanishes.

Nohr wins the war.

 

_~~But at what cost? Father—Garon—dies, possessed and long dead in truth, Takumi is possessed in turn. Innocent blood turns rivers red, leaves her hands slick and her heart heavy.~~ _

 

In the aftermath, she sits against a tree, overlooking the blood-soaked swath she had cut through Hoshido, in the name of her father and the country she calls home.

Her siblings are all busy in the aftermath, and she—she cannot bring herself to any kind of joy in the victory.

So she leans back, closes her eyes, and begs for forgiveness—for she chose her path, and all it brought was suffering.

She leans back, closes her eyes, and prays. And sleeps.

 

Then, she wakes.

But she is no longer in the blood-soaked remnants of Hoshido.

 

///

The second time, she is confused. Why is she back in the Northern Fortress? What’s going on?

Then: was her choice on the plains just a dream, then? A horrible premonition of what will come if she chooses Nohr on those plains, where war will break lose from its chains?

Or will it even happen at all?

 

So she resolves to wait, to see if things happen the same.

_~~They do.~~ _

Then, she makes her choice.

 

She chooses Hoshido.

 

It rends her heart to shreds, to turn on her Nohrian family—but she hopes, and hopes desperately, that this will be the right path.

_~~She’s wrong.~~ _

 

She fights the war once more, championing Hoshido instead.

For a while, she thinks she’s made the right choice—Camilla is left alive, and so is Leo, and the rivers are left untouched by so much innocent blood—

Then they reach Castle Krakenburg.

Xander waits for her, cold and ever the dutiful and proud Crown Prince.

She chose Hoshido, betrayed him, became Kamui instead of Corrin.

And, just like Ryoma—he demands she face him, to either kill him or let him kill her. Because he cannot see another way. And for the life of her, she can’t either, but she _can’t lift her blade against her big brother. Not again._

Then, Elise is there.

She dies by Xander’s blade, protecting ~~Corrin~~ Kamui.

 

It breaks Xander. ~~~~

_~~It breaks her too.~~ _

 

She is forced to kill Xander herself.

_~~His eyes still stick in her mind, even now—~~ _

 

Then, they kill Garon.

Still possessed, still long dead.

 

And, instead of vanishing—Azura dissolves into water and nothingness, leaving behind empty thanks and empty victories.

 

Hoshido wins the war.

 

But ~~Corrin~~ Kamui isn’t sure she can ever heal from the scars left by it.

And, in the aftermath, she leaves her surviving siblings to their victorious celebration. Instead, she finds a tree, and sits. Leans against it, and closes her eyes. Begs for forgiveness, because if Nohr was the wrong choice, then how is this any better?

No matter what side she has chosen, her family tears itself apart around her. And perhaps it is selfish, but she _hates_ to see that. Wants her family happy and safe and together, without war or death or innocent blood slick and warm on her hands.

 

So she sits, and prays, and, eventually, sleeps.

Dreams.

 

And then, once more, she awakens.

And, once more, she is no longer in the shattered remains of Nohr.

 

///

The third time, she doesn’t make it to the plains.

Instead, she takes Mikoto’s place, refuses to let her mother die.

The last thing she knows of that time is her mother, screaming, begging, crying— _please please please no, not again, not you, please not you I just got you back!_

 

The it’s all dark, and she supposes she dies.

 

Then, she wakes up.

Again.

///

The fourth, she dies in *****, allowing Azura and Gunter and Jakob to escape.

 

She hopes it’s the end, because she’s so tired by now—

 

She wakes up.

Once more.

///

Her fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth times—she has a plan.

Or, well, kind of.

Clearly, if she’s reliving the end of the war over and over and ~~overandoverandover—~~ again, then there’s something she did wrong that she’s supposed to fix, right?

And, well, if choosing Hoshido didn’t fix it, and saving Mikoto didn’t, and ***** was a deathtrap…

Then maybe, just maybe, she needs to fix something when she chooses Nohr.

 

It—doesn’t work.

As it turns out, her first two times—she was lucky. _Really_ lucky.

Her first time with this plan—her fifth time through these two years of her _life_ —she dies on the mission to the Ice Tribe. Her second, she dies at the Eternal Stairway instead of Lilith. Her third, Takumi kills her with an arrow through the throat. ~~Choking on her own blood is not a pleasant experience.~~

Her fourth, she slips. Falls into the Bottomless Canyon. Without Azura there with her, without Gunter or Jakob—her death is swift and merciless.

_~~Something bad happened after, but she still can’t remember. She isn’t sure she wants to.~~ _

Her fifth—she almost makes it. Almost.

Before the Yato can be empowered by Siegfried—Garon _~~Anankos in truth~~_ strikes.

It is painful, and the agony steals her breath away even as her bones crush and snap under his blows.

It is not a swift death.

Her sixth, she wakes shaking, trembling. She has long come to terms with her deaths ~~not really, she’s a horrible liar, and she’s only had time to get better,~~ and being reset, but—that is the first time her death has been so painful.

_~~It’s far from the last.~~ _

 

Her sixth time, she finishes it. She succeeds—Nohr wins, and though blood turns rivers red, more were at least spared.

_~~Not her family, though. Ryoma, Takumi—gods, she’s so damn sorry. Why won’t this end already?!~~ _

__

And, in the aftermath, she doesn’t find a tree, doesn’t beg and think and pray there in the bloody silence. Doesn’t sleep.

 

And, in the aftermath, helping Xander—she sways. Her blood runs cold, and the world spins.

 

“—Corrin? Sister, _are you all right? Corrin!”_

 

She’s barely aware of her knees hitting the floor, her body crumpling like a puppet with its strings cut.

She is dead before she hits the floor.

 

When she wakes, she is—once again—within the Northern Fortress, with her retinue going through the motions for the _eleventh time._

///

That loop—for they’re truly loops, she can admit it now—she goes through the motions. She is empty, cold inside.

She did it right, saved more lives—and still, she could not win.

What now, then?

Is she to do the same with Hoshido, to see Xander and Elise die in front of her again and again? To have her heart rent to pieces by her betrayal of the family that has loved her and known her since her arrival in Nohr?

 

In the end, there is nothing for it. If she wants this to end—she must pursue it.

And so, for the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth loops—she chooses Hoshido.

Dies, and wins, and dies again.

 

And, in the aftermath of her fifteenth loop, when she wakes—

She admits to herself, that perhaps, she is long since dead.

Oh, perhaps not in body—but in spirit?

Probably.

 

She has destroyed both sides of her family _six times apiece._ Fought and killed and destroyed; forget her hands, her whole _soul_ is soaked in innocent blood.

 

For the first time in a long time, she thinks of telling the truth when someone asks her if she’s okay.

Of telling that unfortunate person _everything_.

 

So she does.

 

///

Jakob takes it—poorly.

“My Lady, are you sure you’re feeling all right?” he asks at first, worry in his eyes—for he can see the cold, dead wall that lurks behind her façade, and it chills him to the bone.

His Lady Corrin can never—could never—be so cold and angry and dead inside.

 

He tells her as much, and then says that she must simply have had a very bad dream. Perhaps it was the tea last night before bed?

 

That loop, with Jakob hovering quietly and ~~condescendingly~~ worriedly over her shoulder has her considering the drop off the towers in a new light for the first time.

She wouldn’t push him off, no, never.

But to slip, to simply let herself trip and fall and be suspended for a few, peaceful heartbeats before the sharp, cracking landing? Before the quiet peace of death?

 

…it is the first time it has sounded quite so appealing.

She wonders if it is a bad thing that she can’t quite muster up the energy to care.

 

///

The seventeenth loop, she musters up the ~~energy~~ courage to tell Mikoto. Her mother has visions, right? Sees the future?

She, of all people, would understand that _she’s not making this up, and ~~no she’s not okay~~ yes she’s fine, please don’t freak out but please, she needs some damn help here?_

She’s right. For once.

Mikoto takes the news badly, but not like Jakob. She stares at Corrin, long and hard, and tears well up in her eyes, because Corrin has let the role of _sweetperkycheerfulprincessofNohr/Hoshido_ drop.

 

And Mikoto cries, because the Corrin that she had hoped for—the sweet, kind princess who had met her mother for the first time once upon a time, has long since died a painful death.

 

Corrin thinks, vaguely, that that part of her died when she woke up for the third time, grieving and hurting and numb.

~~It’s easier to not feel at all than to be immobile from grief. She can’t afford not to keep moving.~~

And then Mikoto’s hugging her, desperately, because there is nothing she can do, and _~~they both know it~~_ but she will look, and try, and search for a _way_ , because Corrin-Kamui is her daughter.

 

Corrin—doesn’t hope.

~~That part of her died a long time ago.~~

///

Mikoto fails, slain by Xander’s hand.

 

And Corrin— ~~but is she really Corrin anymore? She’s surely not Kamui, a dead name for a long dead child, but she doesn’t feel like Corrin anymore either—~~ stops.

 

She—doesn’t want to remember anymore.

 

That life is the first time she kills herself.

 

It is far from the last.

///

From there, she turns her sights in a new direction.

Perhaps, if choosing a side is the problem—choosing neither, and succeeding would see this set right?

 

So she tries. And she tries. ~~And she tries and tries and tries and _tries—_~~

Until, one day, she succeeds.

And, in the aftermath, Anankos dead and her siblings alive around her, she lets herself hope.

Because surely, definitely, this has to be the end? The true end, the right one?

 

And when the days after Anankos’ death pass without her death, without a slow, dizzying fall to the ground—she dares to believe.

 

And when she has the opportunity to see her siblings all in one place, laughing— _Xander, Ryoma, Camilla, Hinoka, Leo, Takumi, Elise, Sakura_ —she dares to move on.

 

She falls in love, strangely enough. She shoves the ~~memories~~ dreams, surely surely just strange dreams of _~~eighteentwentythirtyfourty~~_ possible paths and lives to the back of her mind, and _lives_.

 

She has two children, and when her husband leaves her—and then returns, she dares to bury those dreams. Dares to believe that this is real and true and possible.

_~~Kana and ****** are perfect and beautiful and so perfect in her arms that she cries, and her husband cries with her. She is soaked with sweat and tired and aching from the birth, but she is so~~ _ ~~happy _._~~

_~~She is alive, and married, and has two children. She is Queen of *****, her family is united, and Hoshido and Nohr are at peace for the first time in decades.~~ _

__

_~~She lives, and hopes that it was just a cruel dream.~~ _

_~~It must be.~~ _

__

_~~She sees Kana and ****** grow up, sees them turn into a pair of fine Heirs to her throne.~~ _

_~~She meets her husband’s parents.~~ _

_~~She rules, and rules well.~~ _

__

_~~And, in the end, when her husband passes on, Kana and ****** grieving at his side, she holds his hands. Cries.~~ _

_~~And, when old age comes for her too, at last, with Kana and ****** sending her off, she waits to see her dearest love.~~ _

__

_Instead, she wakes again._

_And she **r a g e s.**_

**Author's Note:**

> :)
> 
> (also, as for who Corrin ends up with in that last loop--I leave that up to you readers. However, personally? I ship Corrin/Laslow. So take that as you will.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I Don't Want to Live Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11353773) by [Omness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omness/pseuds/Omness)




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